By 2020, John Lewis would have grown its Home business brand by £1 billion in annual revenue. In addition, the retailer will be seeking to continue expanding partnerships with diverse brands. Essentially, John Lewis will be benchmarking its success and building on it by having design credentials and quality solidly placed at the centre of the department store growth plans. Critical to all this is a fresh Design Project, a new collection the company seeks to introduce by autumn. This aims to target customers seeking progressive modern pieces to accentuate their homes. It’s essentially an in-house with 150 pieces of design collections focusing hugely on serious design.

John Lewis won’t stop continuing to build its current brands from Croft, which speaks of timeless designs with nature and luxury at the heart of its materials, including House, which focuses on ensuring the “rent generation” requirements have been met.

The retailer hasn’t stopped there yet and continues to release a series of special collaborations with diverse brands across the board, from Leon, a dining chain, West and Loaf. For the Loaf exclusive collections, buyers will find five uniquely designed pieces in about twenty fabrics. The department store will be West Elm’s only stockists, who form an exclusive external partner beyond its stores. The brand will be hitting nine branches soon.

Extensive range

John Lewis provides a unique home service range allowing buyers to design and personalise each space with their homes to meet their individual needs through professional John Lewis Partners. Apart from Any Sofa Fabric, where models of sofas are created in diverse fabric choices and combinations, other services include consultations on Home Design, customised window dressings and fitted furniture.

The retailer recently invested about £14 million in an Oxford Street flagship Home department. The group has also opened other Home Hub departments in Birmingham, Basingstoke and Horsham, among other branches. These dedicated areas bring together all the various home services John Lewis provides. Home Hubs will also be found in other shops opening within Leeds and Chelmsford branches.

Belief in themselves

According to the Home Buying section of John Lewis, hitting £1 billion in sales from their brand will be a significant milestone for the group. It’ll reflect on the company’s belief in its design abilities and provision of perfectly designed assortments. The company is very passionate about its in-house products, design professionals, and their creations that have given birth to Home’s Design Project. The collection is visually attractive, and the items have been designed thoughtfully apart from being created from high-quality materials.

At the same time, home products sold by the department store have been well accepted globally, particularly the company’s shop-in-shops ventures through global retail partners such as Ireland’s Arnotts.

Poor Weather versus Brexit

The news comes in the wake of reports that supermarkets have been enduring the worst performance in sales in 24 months after the Brexit vote. However, analysts have not entirely blamed this on the vote to leave the European Union but on poor weather. While in July 2015, the weather had temperatures of 35 degrees on average, July 2016 came with wind and rain, and good weather has only been felt recently. It’s also clear from consumer and retail insight professionals that there’s still scanty information on how retail prices have been affected by the Brexit vote or the number of items customers purchased.

Competition and decreasing sales

Brits wanted to maximise on the warm weather rather than purchase homewares and clothes. While supermarket chains such as Morrisons, Asda, Sainsbury’s and Tesco continued to decrease sales, a decline in market share and increased competition from chains such as Waitrose, discounters like Lidl are believed to be the real reason. In July 2016, Waitrose reported a rise of 7.2 percent in sales with the week ending July 23rd, with a massive increase in price margins in various goods such as sparkling wine, lollies and ice cream. Nonetheless, Waitrose’s sister department store, John Lewis, wasn’t reporting the same great news, indicating that sales had fallen by around the same time by 4.3 percent.

John Lewis Partnership is generally a UK employee-owned company that operates the Waitrose supermarkets and John Lewis retail stores. All the employees own the company via a trust that’s referred to as “Partners”. They have a voice in the running of the Partnership with a share of the yearly profits shared among them, mainly a significant extra amount on top of their salary. The first drapery shop by John Lewis opened in London along 132 Oxford Street back in 1864.